Vilsack: one food inspection agency for the US

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday he favours a single food safety agency, but he has not decided whether it should be located in the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or an independent agency.

Commenting on the salmonella peanut butter scandal, Vilsack told the US Rice Federation that the issue of centralisation is key because food safety is both a human health and market issue.

Two systems
"We are the only industrial nation to have two systems," Vilsack said, a reference to USDA's responsibility for meat, poultry and eggs and FDA's responsibility for most other food products. He pointed out that no children have been harmed by peanut butter purchased through the USDA's school-lunch programme.

Last week, USDA proposed to debar the Peanut Corporation of America and its subsidiary Tidewater Blanching LLC, the suppliers of the tainted peanut butter peanut paste, from doing business with the federal government. That move followed USDA's decision to stop buying from PCA.

More quickly
According to Vilsack, the government would have made that move much more quickly had food safety policy been unified. Vilsack asked the rice growers, "How would you like to be in the peanut business today?" He added that food safety is "about preserving the income opportunities for farmers and ranchers."

Noting that 325,000 Americans are hospitalized every year for treatment of food-borne illnesses and that 'millions' of others have food-borne illnesses that do not require treatment, Vilsack said the government must ensure that the food supply is safe. "That's how you preserve markets," he added.